Fili’s world

Avia’s classes got me interested in a whole new approach for studying Chinese - reading Chinese BBS jokes. Avia was kind enough to send me some, and I also started looking around myself. Since my level of Chinese is still not very good, I stick to the really simple ones, but even those I find to be really neat. Most of the next ones that I quickly translated are jokes that I’ve known since I was a kid, which was strange to find around Chinese BBSes in Chinese. I wonder, who copied from who?

It’s good exercise and it’s fun. If you got some simple2intermediate level jokes for me - send’em over, I’m interested.

(yeah, corrections to embarrassing mistakes, to both my Chinese and English, will also be highly appreciated :$)

-

Chinese :

一家人在客廳裏看電視。電視上正在演美國航太飛行員上月亮的新聞。
10 歲的哥哥說：我長大了，也要去月亮，那兒一定挺好玩兒的。
6 歲的弟弟回答：這算什麼，我長大了， 要去太陽，太陽比月亮大，一定更好玩兒！
哥哥說，別去了，那兒會燒死你的！
小孩子回答：沒關係，我可以晚上去啊！

Translation :

A family was watching TV. The TV was showing news about the Americans reaching the moon on the previous month.

The 10 years old older brother said : "When I grow up, I also want to go to the moon, it’s gotta be really fun".

The 6 years old younger brother replied : "That’s nothing, when I grow up, I’ll go to the sun. The sun’s bigger, so it must be better."

The older brother said : "You can’t go there, you’ll die of the heat!"

The little child replied : "Nah, no problem, I’ll just go in the evening."

Chinese :

一位先生帶著他的小兒子到北京劇院去聽音樂會。一位女歌手正大聲
唱著一首歌。
“爸爸，為什麼那個男人要用他的棍子打那個女的呢？”孩
子問。
“不是打女的，他是樂隊的指揮。”
“如果不是要打，那為什麼這個女的叫得這麼大聲呢？”

Translation :

One guy was taking his little son to the Beijing Opera to see a concert, and the lady singer was singing very loudly.

"Dad, why does that man want to hit that woman with his stick?" the young son asked.

"He doesn’t want to hit her, he uses that stick to command the orchestra".

"If he doesn’t want to hit her, then why does she scream so loudly?"

Chinese :

剛滿五歲的孩子請媽媽給他五塊錢。
你要錢幹嗎？
去郵局買信封和郵票，我要給明明寫信。
可你還不會寫字啊！
那沒關係，反正他也不認識字。

Translation :

A five year old child asks his mother to give him 5 dollars.

"What do you need the money for?"

"To go to the post-office and buy a letter and stamps. I want to write MingMing(?) a letter."

"But you can’t even write!"

"That’s okay, he can’t really read".

Chinese :

父親：桌上那兩封信都寄出去了嗎
兒子：都寄出了，但我把郵票貼錯了，國內的貼了十五元，國外的貼了二元五角。
父親：你真不小心，後來重新貼了嗎?
兒子：因為郵票撕不下來，我就把裏面的信換了。

Translation:

Father : Did you send the letters on the table?

Son: Yeah, I did. But, I pasted the stamps wrong. I put 15$ on the domestic letter and 2.5$ on the international letter.

Father : You really should be more careful. Did you change the stamps back to the right letters?

Son : Since I couldn’t take the stamps off, I just exchanged the letters.

Chinese :

老師對一個小學生說：“你的數學怎麼一下子變得這麼好？是不是你父親放假了，能多幫助你一下？”
小學生回答：“恰恰相反，最近我爸去外地辦事，所以我只好自己做功課。

Translation:

The teacher asks the young pupil : "How come your math became so good? your father took a day off to help you, right?"

The young pupil : "Exactly the opposite, recently my dad had to go away and take care of some things, so I had to do my homework myself".

Chinese :

老師：“請把‘我的哥哥去學校’這句話改寫成將來式。”
學生：“我哥哥的兒子去學校。”

Translation :

Teacher : "Please rewrite the following sentence in the future tense - ‘my older brother goes to school’"

Pupil : "My older brother’s son goes to school".